Survey says?

Why is it that more often than not when you go to your doctor's office to hear some sort of important news there always seems to be a delay getting to the punchline.

First, you wait in the lobby. Then you wait in the exam room. Then other folks come and go. Then the doctor comes in and then leave and then comes back again.

This was my afternoon appointment.

Let's do this in the reverse order. The fantastic news --- NO surgery or likely rehab. Yay!!!!!!!
As I waited for the ortho to review my MRI images in another room --- I decided to go through my written file and read what the MRI folks said b/c of course after hours of pouring over internet research I am now a medical intern.

What did catch my eye was a reference to image #14.

Soon enough, the ortho was back and we were all looking at mysterious image #14 on the big screen.
Apparently in addition to the small chip on my arm there is some strange shadowing on the ball of my shoulder. As the ortho explained it to me ----

• My outer core is intact and looks strong (the chip is below the ball)
• The shadowing confirms that there is some mushiness and weakness inside the core --- similar to if you punched a honeycomb. Main piece would stay intact, but inner combs would be messy.
• 4-6 weeks of rest; in and out of my sling is the recommendation --- with an emphasis to get out of the sling and be a little active, but within reason and never straining my shoulder w/o proper support.

I am psyched!

Mom (my official chauffeur, partner-in-crime and medical buddy) and I decided to celebrate by buying an obscene amount of wine, cheese, crackers and fancy chocolate.

I may not be 100% today, but we have a plan. Watch out...I'm coming back stronger than ever.

Not the best way to prep for the BIG BRICK-A-MANIA

[Bay front table at Macky's]

 

Sunday was the BIG BRICK-A-MANIA workout.  The goal was a 4 hour ride and an hour-ish run.  Wowzers...that's the longest I've ever been out.

One would think that the day before such an undertaking should be spent relaxing, eating right and hydrating.  Well...I missed the memo on that.  First The Husband and I hit Macky's for lunch --- Corona's do have carbs right?  Later that night, we ended up at Fish Tales for dinner and drinks. 

By 10:30 pm I was finally packed, in bed (dead tired) and mentally preparing for the 5:30 am start time in Fenwick.

7 Days of fun in the sun

[Loving my new board...at SUP Fitness Class in Fenwick Isalnd, DE]

I've completely neglected you Mr. Blogger and I have no excuse except to say that...I've been busy.

Let's think back to what's happened over the last week...

• Happy 4th of July --- crabs, BBQ, boating and fireworks!
• I bought an OxBow SUP at DelMarVa Water Sports...and am loving it...everything except that it's wickedly big and a bitch to find a home for.  Luckily it currently fits nicely on my deck.  Oh well!
• Got a lot of training in this week --- swimming, biking, SUP-ing and something that looks like running

The BIG news is that I hit a new best mph the other day.  I officially maxed at 26 mph on the bike.  GO ME!  That's a huge improvement from the days when 16 mph was a good day.

Back on track

Veggie egg white scramble...with a side of fresh fruit. Trying to stay positive, but I'm definitely going to be looking for an early lunch today.

Long Weekends

What a great time to plan a 3-day weekend. Since I haven't taken much vacation over the last 10 months (my vacation accrues May to May) due to work demands, I need to burn some days before May...and last Friday was the perfect day off. Temps were in the upper 60's/low 70's. Lovely.

This was going to be a weekend crammed with activities --- social, family and training.
The only bummer was that the dental work I had done on Thursday morning really was bothering me. It aches and feels really sore. There's only so many pills you can pop. I'm going to have to go back to the dentist this week to make sure everything is ok. If you can't tell...I'm dreading it...but this pain is pretty bad...and I can't take it anymore

FRIDAY
Friday was all about being outside, family and errands.

I started off with a 20 mile bike ride at Hains Point. That's where the pix was taken. Man, I really love riding in circles. :) Bonus that I ran into a fellow Snappler.

I next headed out to run some errands, including going to look at a Felt B16 tri bike at Revolution Cycles in Rockville. What a beauty. Was surprisingly comfortable to ride in the different set up. I think I rode it around so long they actually started to worry I wasn't going to come back. I also checked out a new Trek --- it was way more expensive and surprisingly not as comfortable as the Felt. Lots to think about --- like do I need this and should I look at the Cervelo P2 b/c it's the comparable ride. Luckily there's no real rush.

I finished up the day at Mom's.

SATURDAY
Today was the beginning of the taper run before next week's Suntrust Half Marathon. We were scheduled to run 8 miles. After the prior day's bike ride I cut my run down to just under 7 miles.

After the run I headed over to a friend's baby shower. It's always nice to see friends you haven't seen in awhile and especially for such a wonderful occasion. My friend looked fabulous and so incredibly happy. I'm looking forward to meeting her new daughter when she arrives in late April.

By the time the party was over I was officially moving into "I haven't had a nap and therefore I'm getting grumpy" mode. Watch out! Luckily I was able to grab a 2 hour nap before meeting folks for dinner and a movie.

SUNDAY
After leisurely making my way to Wilson in the morning, I somehow was motivated to knock out my laps. I again was reminded that I am way too lazy to train w/o someone pushing me and have to pair up with a real workout plan...that I actually follow. If I use my old workouts from college as a comparison --- I really am a super slacker. I'm missing the good stress those workouts gave me. Man...I miss my old training partner and how we used to annihilate our sets. Red faced and heart pumping was the theme. :(

After swimming I headed out for brunch with some running folks. What a lovely day to sit outside, catch some rays, chow down on breakfast foods and enjoy some good company.

When I got home my Cannondale was calling my name so I went out for ride through the trails by my house.

What a nice way to end the weekend.
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Always Be Prepared

That's a motto that everyone from a Boy Scout to you're average person knows. It's also what the nutritionist drilled into us last week --- "if you can't fuel it...you can't do it.". Of course, days later I found myself doing exactly the opposite.

Saturday morning I was scheduled to run 13 miles as part of my half marathon training program. I wasn't too worried. I was sure I would be fine and get it done.

Unfortunately (don't you hate that word?), I was also supposed to be at the beach this weekend --- which meant another solo run. As luck would have it, that was the least of my worries.

I've been busy at work and busy trying my best to get back on track with my triathlon training program. As a result, I squeezed in some spinning on Friday late in the day before rushing home and heading to the beach. The result was (1) I felt great and logged some time on the bike, (2) I wasn't ready to head out of town and (3) I was running around the house throwing stuff in my overnight bag...hoping I had everything. This is never a good sign.

The result was that I forgot to bring my hydration belt and any Glu's. Shit. You ain't finding any of that stuff at the beach before 10am on Saturday.

I did my best to mitigate these issues by changing my route to be more urban so I could stop as needed for snacks, water or help. Though this was the right thing to do since I had to stop a couple times to buy water it totally sucked. I ended up running south along Coastal Hwy to the end of the boardwalk and back.

Running on the narrow sidewalks with other runners and random bikers (get in the road!) and also navigating all the turning cars is not fun. All this makes for limited opportunities to turn your brain off and just run. :(

I motored along at a pretty slow pace and at the halfway point felt pretty good. Soon into my return I started crashing. The morning started off in the 40's and once the sun popped out of the clouds it was quickly in the low 50's...and I was really sweating and getting hot. Since I was conveniently on the boardwalk now, I stopped for another bottled water and added a big salty pretzel to nibble on.

Unfortunately I think my fueling efforts were just a tad late. I starting cramping up and ended up having to walk a bit. I was able to start running again, but by mile 11 I was officially done.

As I was stretching along the side of the road waiting for The Husband to pick my pathetic-self up I was reminded that I need to take this all a bit more seriously --- and always be prepared.
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Food Frauds

After an off-season that was much longer than anticipated and spending much of that time enjoying the finer things in life (reality television, wine, sweet treats, holiday food, did I say wine??) I've accepted that I need to also start focusing on eating better again because trying to convince myself that nearly all my clothes shrank at the dry cleaner clearly just ain't gonna cut it.

As a result for the last two weeks I've instituted a new routine of making more of my own meals vs. enjoying the culinary delights of others. The good news is that I have some culinary skills. The bad news is that fried chicken and chocolate cake are not recipes I can really work into this new "let's eat better" routine.

I have tried to trick myself with these yogurt dessert things, but let's be for real --- they don't really taste like a strawberry cheesecake or red velvet cake or apple pie or cinnamon rolls.

But, since the only way I'm gonna improve my bike split is to reduce the amount of baggage (and by baggage I mean an extra large but lovely vintage Louis Vuitton travel trunk) I drag around, I think I suddenly really love these things.

Here's to healthy eating!
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Dumbbells Are My Friends

Say that five times fast.

Tonight I finally made it back over to Tidal for the group strength training session with the Snapple kids.

Thank goodness because I needed to flee my office from all the homemade treats that I successfully dodged for the whole day. I swear that there was a reality show bake-off competition being staged at my office and the delicious creations were scattered everywhere I looked.

Overall tonight's workout was a nice jump start back into training. As I type this up I'm already feeling a bit sore and predict that tomorrow morning my legs are going to really feel the effects of those reverse lunges.

Baby steps people...one dumbbell at a time.